Validation of DigitalGlobe WorldView-3 Earth imaging satellite shortwave infrared bands for mineral mapping

WorldView-3 (WV-3) is a newly launched (August 2014) high-spatial resolution commercial multispectral satellite sensor with eight visible to near-infrared bands (0.42 to 1.04 mu m) and eight shortwave infrared (SWIR) bands (1.2 to 2.33 mu m). Previous analyses using hyperspectral imagery (HSI) data of Cuprite, Nevada, to simulate WV-3's eight SWIR bands demonstrated identification and mapping of a wide variety of minerals, including kaolinite, alunite, buddingtonite, muscovite, calcite, and hydrothermal silica. These results, using partial unmixing, showed mineral occurrences similar to those mapped using full resolution HSI data and established WV-3's potential as a valuable new mineral mapping tool. Confusion matrix analyses using the HSI data as ground truth did indicate, however, some difficulties with mapping spectrally similar minerals using the multispectral data. Follow-up mineral mapping, using on-orbit WV-3 data acquired September 19, 2014, for Cuprite, Nevada, and the same algorithms and methods used for WV-3 simulation, indicates that the WV-3 sensor is performing as expected. WV-3 SWIR data analyses closely match expectations for mineral mapping as predicted by the simulation. While not as capable as an HSI sensor, WV-3's carefully selected eight SWIR bands provide new remote mineral mapping capabilities not available from any other spaceborne multispectral system. (C) The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.